Mark Lewis-Francis has revealed the moment he knew Britain's sprint relay
team were set for a glorious golden finale at the Olympic Games.
The 4x100 metres quartet of Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish
and Lewis-Francis snatched gold ahead of the United States in a thrilling
conclusion to the athletics programme in Athens.
The American team featured 100m champion Justin Gatlin, 200m winner Shawn
Crawford and 100m bronze medallist and former Olympic champion Maurice Greene,
but the British team's slick baton changing paid dividends as Lewis-Francis held
off Greene by the narrowest of margins on the line.
The 21-year-old from Birmingham said: "I didn't pay any attention to Maurice
Greene but the thing that gave me confidence was that he came over and shook my
hand.
"That's the first sign of weakness in my eyes and gave me a bit of
encouragement that he's noticed that I'm there.
"It didn't worry me that he was on the outside of me, if he got in front of
me he was something to chase and if I was in front he was something to run away
from. It worked out for the best."
The stunning victory came at the end of a traumatic nine days of competition
for the men's team, who were facing up to the prospect of failing to win a track
and field medal for the first time ever.
Heavily criticised in some quarters in the build-up to the Games for being
'sub-standard,' none of the sprinters reached the final of his event, Britain
having no representative in the showpiece 100m final for the first time since
1976.
"I still come out of a daze and think I'm Olympic champion," admitted
Lewis-Francis, who reached the semi-finals of the 100m. "It's crazy. It's what
I've been dreaming about since I was a little boy.
"Since I knew what athletics was all about, sitting with my little sister
watching athletics on TV, I've always wanted to be Olympic champion and it's
finally happened.
"I can't wait to go home and get my spikes back on and do some work. I'm
going home with my head held high, before I got this medal I was pretty low, but
I'm back up there again."
Gardener, who feared he would not be at the Olympics at all when he needed a
double hernia operation after winning the world indoor title earlier this year,
added: "We came here with a lot of criticism and didn't do brilliantly in our
individual events.
"We did believe we were good enough to get a medal before we started but the
semi-final was the turning point, running so well despite making a few
mistakes.
"We said 'no, we don't want a medal, we can get gold,' and the belief went
from there.
"We can't really explain the spirit, you can't put it into words. It was in
the air between us, we just knew something special was going to happen and when
we got down to the final call and heard the national anthem being played we all
looked each other and said 'seize the day'."
Campbell's participation in the relay had been in doubt due to the hamstring
injury which hampered him in the individual events, the Sydney silver medallist
also being singled out for criticism by former Olympic champion Michael
Johnson.
And the 30-year-old Sale Harrier revealed: "I had to have a meeting with the
guys - because of the treatment I've been having I couldn't stay in the village
- and basically laid down all my problems.
"I said 'I can't guarantee that I'll finish but if you want me to go out and
try I will' and to their credit they all said 'let's do this' and that's when I
believed we were going to do something special because that takes a lot of guts
on their side. Them putting faith in me lifted me definitely.
"When we were warming up and knew Kelly (Holmes) had won the gold I realised
on the men's side we hadn't won a medal.
"I just remember thinking we've got to do it, we have no option."
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